Mothering Sunday generates big business for florists, chocolatiers and the greeting card industry. However, recent research shows that up to 1.5 million families will have a parent at work on Mothering Sunday – and regularly on Sundays. Perhaps even more surprisingly, 1.34 million families with children have at least one parent working on both weekend days. These parents are at work when their kids need them the most – at the weekends, when they are not at school. The Family Day Bill proposed by the Relationships Foundation would allow all parents the opportunity to spend a weekend day with their children. Michael Trend, the Executive Director of Relationships Foundation comments: ‘The issue is about more than one day of the year. It is not simply about mothers, but fathers too. Men in the UK are more likely to work at weekends than men in any other EU country. 44% of female UK employees work at least one Saturday a month and the UK tops the European tables for evening and weekend work.’ ‘In Weekend Workers: Part-time Parents? we ask whether parents have a real choice to spend weekend time with their children. The research shows that the UK has a serious problem – the impact of unsocial hours on parenting and family life. The Bill is not about prescription, but about potential. It gives parents the choice to be responsible.
Research shows that three out of four working families experience some weekend work and in over half of these – 2.41 million families – at least one parent is working regularly at weekends. In the EU, only Bulgaria and Romania have longer average working hours than the UK. Parents tend to work even longer hours than other employees. When parents work at the weekends they see less of their children that day and less overall because there is no significant evidence of them making up the lost time on another day. KTC‘s new pamphlet concludes that the time has come for a Family Day Bill. It would give every parent of children under the age of 16 the right in law to a weekend day off each week. This right would be established through an extension to current flexible working legislation. Significant change is necessary. Our pamphlet highlights the negative impact of unsocial working hours on family life. Most parents want to be responsible parents – the Family Day Bill gives them the choice.